No… the likeliest source was the sorceress Fola.The Church and the City had waged war in the past, though far from this corner of the world.The City would surely arm any agent with as much knowledge of the invocations as possible—information Fola must have given to the prince during their audience, which must have already transpired.
His position was weak.This may well be his last chance to win some measure of Owyn’s trust before the prince banished him from the kingdom.He had a means towards that end at his disposal… but using it might see him imprisoned and sent to the executioner, not only banished.
In an interrogation, some tools—the heated iron, the flaying knife, the garrotte—were best saved for when the patient had already been acclimatised to pain.Sometimes, urgency demanded he turn to them from the beginning, even at the risk of his subject’s death.
This was such a time, and Afondir’s secret was such a tool.
The metaphor went further, Torin thought with some amusement.In both cases, he took a measure of unseemly pleasure.If this worked, he would be free of the repugnant count, which excited him nearly as much as the steam of blood on the heated edge of a knife.
‘The Church has no intention of usurping your rule, Highness,’ Torin said.‘Mortalkind needs stable, strong leadership.We have no wish to bring the devastation of war to your lands, only to welcome you into a community of the enlightened.Though I must tell you—and I have been seeking a way to say this that would not turn you immediately against us—the Count of Afondir seeks to use us as a means to such an end.’
Owyn leaned forward, his hands tight around his cup of tea.
‘Do you have proof of this?’he said.
Not the reaction Torin had expected.The revelation that one of his vassals sought to usurp him should have frightened the boy.Perhaps the haunting and the death of his father had broken something in him, left him callous and emotionally adrift.
‘Other than my testimony, no,’ Torin admitted.‘Though with time and my tools I might draw a confession from him, if that is your desire.’
‘Eurion of Afondir is a snake,’ Owyn said.‘But what can I do, without proof?I am not yet even crowned, Anakriarch.Should I begin my rule with an act of tyranny?’
‘I would not presume to advise you in this, Highness,’ Torin said.
‘Oh?But you would suggest I annihilate the magic at the foundation of my kingdom, paving the way for Eurion’s ambitions?’
The boy waved a hand before Torin could respond.‘Apologies, Anakriarch.It has been a long and difficult night.I thank you for bringing this threat to my attention.And for your offer of assistance.I will think on it, when my mind is better suited for thinking.’
Torin dipped his head.‘That is all I ask, Your Highness.In the meantime, my knights and I will continue our investigation of the haunting, to see if there is another, less disruptive way we might be of service to you.’
That was, in the end, the best way to appeal to the rulers of the world.To challenge their beliefs invited their resistance.Every change, every concession to truth, every step out of the darkness of dependency and into the light of virtue and mortal flourishing, had to be coddled and wheedled out of them.They were infants, given power and never asked to grow.Strong and stable leadership, indeed.Well, better Owyn, the stunted boy, than Afondir, the vicious snake.
As Torin left Prince Owyn and returned through the strange, shifting passageways to Orn’s bedside he let himself fume and rage.A good man lay gravely wounded, and dozens more had died in a night of horror.Rather than hunt those responsible, as justice demanded, rather than cleansing the land of the powers at the root of their suffering, Torin had to sit on his hands and wait for a princeling’s permission to act.
At least, to act openly.The days of the crusades—of templars marching into kingdoms and cleansing them by the sword and spear—were past.The Mortal Church privileged temperance over courage, now.But even temperance could be overindulged to the point of viciousness.Was the layabout temperate?Was the fool who let the cruel and wicked abuse him?Restraint was of value, but only until the moment came to strike.
That moment was now.The sorceress Fola was already weaving her web around Prince Owyn.She had come to Parwys for a reason—what, precisely, he did not know.But the City was the Church’s opposite.If Torin sought to destroy the haunting, it stood to reason she sought some power in it—some weapon the City would one day wield against the Church.Perhaps she sought to master the Old Stones herself.Regardless, she had to be dealt with, and soon, before she muddled the prince’s mind any further.
Anwe looked up from Orn’s bedside, where the young knight stirred in his sleep, his breath a gasping rattle.‘He’s taken another fever,’ she said, a rare twinge of worry in her voice.
Here, at least, was something he coulddo.Torin laid his hand on the young knight’s sweat-drenched brow.‘Beren, Agion of Fidelity,’ he prayed aloud.‘She who shepherded her people from the fires of Utru, through the storms of the high plain, and lost not a single soul, preserve this anointed one from the frailty of mortal flesh.’
A heat to match Orn’s fever swept through Torin, drawing power from his own body and passing it to the young knight.Torin gasped and withdrew his hand, then collapsed into a chair by Orn’s bedside.His flanks ached and his limbs felt leaden, as though he had just woken from his own convalescence.Weakness that would fade, in time.Meanwhile, Orn’s breathing had eased and the fever flush had faded from his face.
‘I will stay with him,’ Torin said.‘And you will bring me his attacker.’
Anwe’s surprise gave way to a gleeful smile.While Torin had cultivated all nine virtues in at least some measure, he doubted Anwe had spent a moment’s meditation on any but industry, honour, and courage.A Knight of Action, and nothing more.A relic from the days of crusade and conquest, when templars had rebuilt Tarebach with the edges of their blades.Ill-suited to the politicking and convolutions that were the weapons of the moment.
Still, Torin thought drowsily as he watched Anwe belt on her sword, his anger a hot coal beneath the blanket of fatigue—such relics yet had their uses.
A Convergence at Cross Purposes
YC 1189
While the notion underlying the proposal is intriguing, as it has been since the first time it crossed our desk,intriguealone is not sufficient to demand use of the one limited resource which this board is tasked to delegate.Perhaps sufficient experimentation in this eighth, freshly proposed direction may yield deeper knowledge of the soul’s nature, and even the nature of the First Folk themselves.Perhaps.And perhaps battering one’s head with a hammer may, by a happy accident of scrambling one’s thoughts, yield the same.Alas, many notions are intriguing, but we remind the applicant again that one must constrain one’s efforts to the possible.Though our interest is high, our confidence is not, and we must, sadly, reject this proposal.
Excerpt from a formal letter of rejection, Thaumaturgic Research Priorities Board,YC1185
Despite a night without sleep, an exhilarating energy coursed through Fola.She felt transported back to the early days of her research, freshly educated, the world alive with possibilities.Days performing simple experiments with her meagre student’s allocation of thaumacite.Nights spent plumbing the Library’s infinite depths, trawling for texts that might yield the next scrap of useful information.A constant series of new discoveries all supported by a scaffolding of pitch-black tea.
